Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, an ex-governor of Enugu State and former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, in this interview with Ozioma Ubabukoh, shares his life experiences
How was growing up as a child born with a silver spoon in your mouth?
Even though you may say I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, my parents made sure I was not entirely brought up as such. For example, my siblings and I were sent to Saint Patrick’s Primary School, Iva Valley, Enugu for our primary education. This was a school populated predominantly by coal miners’ children. The attraction of the school for my parents was that the family spiritual mentor, then Rev. Father Michael Eneje, who was to become the Bishop of Enugu Diocese, but now deceased, was in charge of the school. This led to a very strict disciplinary upbringing. The privilege I enjoyed with my siblings was that we were the only children who could afford to come to school with shoes, rode to school on our bicycles alongside our teachers and occasionally driven to school by my father’s driver. More often, my mum insisted we trek to school with children of our domestic staff who went to the same school. It is noteworthy that my dad’s driver’s younger brother, Peter, was in my class. Peter retired as a permanent secretary in Enugu State. That goes to show the equal opportunities the educational facilities at that time provided for all children.
Why did you choose to study medicine?
I decided to study medicine for two reasons. Initially, while at Government College, Umuahia, my dad wanted me to study engineering. This was in spite of my childhood desire to be a priest. So I set out studying subjects that would lead me to becoming an engineer. These included technical drawing, wood work, metal work, etc. While I was on this, the civil war broke out when I was in class five. During the war, I worked in the Armed Forces Hospital where I developed interest in medicine. With the war over, my dad said to me, “Your elder brother Joe was to study medicine, but he is now reading law, there must be a doctor in this family. You have to change from engineering to medicine.” I was happy with this development because I had developed interest in medicine during the war. Two, I saw this as a welcome alternative to my original ambition. If I could not minister to a man’s soul, I could very well minister to his health. Indeed I saw my call to medicine as a vocation and loved it.
As an undergraduate, was it all about books for you?
In the medical school, the emphasis was on books and books but I found time for church organisations like Saint Jude’s Society, social organisations like Beta Sigma Fraternity and Medical Students Association. Occasional weekend parties were not left out to unwind.
Describe your days as an undergraduate compared to now.
My days as an undergraduate cannot be compared with what we have today. Granted that my university was badly damaged by the civil war, genuine efforts were made to fix the school. Our lecturers were very dedicated and we the students were anxious to catch up with the years lost due to the war. Today, we have allowed the facilities in our schools to decay, despite increased population stretching and dwindling the amenities. Our lecturers do not earn living wages and have no commitment to their work. Most of the time, they are busy looking for other ways to make ends meet. The students today are so distracted that only a few of them are conscientious with their studies. On graduation, we had house jobs waiting for all graduating students. We had furnished accommodation and car loans to become car owners two weeks after graduation. Today, a good percentage of graduating doctors are looking for house jobs three years after graduation. We need to work hard as a nation to bring back the good old days. It is good that the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities are working together; they are on the right path. If all the funds being rolled out now are judiciously applied, some noticeable changes would be seen.
Some people would say the sight of blood killed their interest in becoming doctors, what was your experience?
I was luckier than most of my classmates as I had my baptism with blood before medical school. While working in the Armed Forces Hospital during the war, I observed my first operation in the theatre. It was an appendicitis operation. The nurses took me through the procedure to dress up for the theatre. When the doctor was fully dressed and ready to go in, I was invited to come near so as to observe and learn what was about to take place. As soon as the doctor cut the skin, blood shot out from both sides of the opened vessel. The last I saw was the doctor trying to clip the blood vessels. The room was turning round and round, then there was darkness. I might have heard someone shout that I should be grabbed as I was slumping. I was later told how I was resuscitated long after the surgery. After this experience, I was able to cope with the sight of blood. My colleagues in the medical school had two hurdles to cross; first was at the anatomy laboratory during our pre-clinical studies. The sight of the cadaver (dead body) that we had to dissect to learn the human anatomy and the actual dissection of the body was too much for some of them to take. Three students changed courses after that day. Many could not eat meat for weeks thereafter. The second was the clinical class. When we got to the clinical, a few still had their fainting attacks first day at surgery but we didn’t lose any more students. Like most doctors, the sight of blood becomes part and parcel of the profession especially for those of us that are surgeons. If it remains a problem, there are many areas of medicine you could specialise in today and have minimal exposure to blood.
When you finished as a doctor, where did you work and how was it as a young doctor?
My first practice as a doctor was at my alma mater, the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu. I worked there as a house officer. It was exciting and challenging. You needed to prove to your teachers that they did not make a mistake in awarding you a degree. When you pass your final examination in medical school, you get provisionally registered as a doctor. It is after you have successfully completed your housemanship and signed off that you can be permanently registered. The greatest excitement I had was being part of a medical team that received a patient in severe pains and we succeeded after a few days to bringing smiles back to her face. This was most dramatic in paediatric surgery where we received newborns who had no chance to live unless we intervened immediately and when we succeeded, we had given that child a chance to live up to 100 years. Nothing could be more satisfying. That is why I finally specialised in paediatric surgery. Thanks to Professor Festus Nwakor who was my great mentor in this field.
As an accomplished paediatric surgeon, why did you still venture into politics?
I did my specialist course at Royal College of Surgeons in London, Children’s Hospital, Birmingham, England and the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Thereafter, I was to go on to the Children’s Hospital in the University of California, United States of America, to do a research on solid tumours in children. Unfortunately, my dad’s health was failing him. I decided to come home and look after him. Thank God I was able to stabilise him for over six years. My elder brother, Joe, was running for the governorship of Enugu State when our father died. I decided to assist him with his campaign while applying to hospitals in the Gulf region for a place to practise paediatric surgery. In the course of very stiff primaries between my brother and Rev. Hyde Onuaguluchi, both of them were disqualified. Our campaign team insisted that I replace my brother. This is how I was drafted into politics and ran and won the governorship race in old Enugu State.
Some people may still feel that your venturing into politics was a big loss to the medical profession, do you feel this way?
Those who think so may be right. This is because I love medical practice. I had indeed set a target for myself that by the time I was 40 years, I must have made a discovery in paediatric surgery that my name would be associated with. I have since learnt that life is unpredictable. As they say, man proposes but God disposes.
What was your experience as governor of Enugu State, and what actually did you want to achieve by aspiring to be governor?
I enjoyed my tenure as governor of Enugu State. This was because I built a great vision for Enugu State. I was just about to get the vision off the ground when the late Gen. Sani Abacha came to power. My areas of interest were to create a new wealth base through agriculture; to explore the mineral deposits in the old Enugu State to generate wealth and employment; to build a road network to connect the state capital to local government areas, food producing areas and major markets; to improve the quality of education, especially in science and information communication technology; and to upgrade the quality of health care delivery. As state policy, I pursued the principles of triangular equilibrium and meritocracy. This was to put behind us the cankerworm we fought for 30 years as ‘wawa’ people against marginalisation by our more endowed neighbours.
Because of the short period in office as governor, did you achieve anything?
We achieved quite a lot. To mention a few, we electrified 70 communities and had imported transformers and other components to start electrifying 90 additional communities. We had completed 85 per cent of our water scheme with RCC in Enugu and Nsukka senatorial zones and with Emzor Sakamory in Abakaliki zone. We had cleared massive hectares of land for our agricultural scheme and imported water pumps and other irrigation equipment for all year farming. Many tractors and farm equipment were procured to cope with our massive agric project. We gave Enugu township roads a facelift and commenced the tarring of Opi-Nsukka Road. We produced master plans for Enugu State University of Science and Technology campuses and started construction. We promoted hundreds of stagnated teachers to improve their morale and employed many more to have a better teacher-pupil ratio. We abrogated the fraudulent agreements in the vegetable oil factory at Nnachi, the Premier Cashew Industry at Oyeh and the aluminum industry at Ohebe Dim and put them into firm indigenous management. We restarted the flour mill at Emene and the first iron and steel mill in Nigeria at Emene was 90 per cent ready to bounce back. The poultry farm and feed mill in Enugu were reactivated and work started on the biggest poultry farm in Eastern Nigeria at Abakaliki. We had commenced the building of a new television transmission station in Nsukka. All these and many more were done in 20 months.
Why did you fall out with Governor Chimaroke Nnamani then?
I didn’t really have much of a problem with Governor Chimaroke Nnamani other than his style of governance. He also wanted to make some of us irrelevant in a party we formed. He was instigated into doing that by President Olusegun Obasanjo who marked some of us down for our stance against his third term bid.
Alhaji Bamanga Tukur recently succumbed to pressure to resign as chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party after a stormy tenure. How would you describe your own tenure?
When I assumed office as chairman of PDP, I found the party miles away from the vision of its founding fathers. My plan was to roll it back to that vision and prepare the party for general elections. This involved rebranding the party, and building internal democracy. I also wanted a modern party with the highest international best practices. I engaged consultants to work out e-registration of our members. Some of these innovations met with resistance from some powerful members for selfish reasons. Also, when we sought to implement the Independent National Electoral Commission’s directives on some of our state chapters, our governors ganged up against that. By and large, I was happy I conducted good primary elections to choose the party’s candidates with minimum imposition. I think the presidential primary was particularly good. I did reasonable re- branding that carried the party to electoral victory.
How did the allegation of misappropriation of funds affect you as PDP chairman?
The allegation of misappropriation of funds never affected my tenure. Before I became chairman, OBJ’s government accused me of ID Card scam. After locking me up for one month, seizing my passport for six years and prosecuting me for six years, the court struck off the matter for lack of diligent prosecution. All these were punishments for not supporting third term. It is on record that my policy as chairman brought into the coffers of PDP the largest amount of money the party ever made in its history and I handed over the largest amount of money as an outgoing chairman.
Some people even argue that you were cleared of the allegation because of your position in the ruling party, how would you react to this?
If you recall, Obasanjo and Chimaroke pushed me out of PDP. The matter was prosecuted while I was partly in ANPP and ACN. PDP had no part in the successful outcome of my matter.
Did you get married to a fellow doctor?
Yes I got married to a fellow doctor but not out of design. I had wished to marry a teacher because most of my classmates who gave me tough time in school were children of teachers. So I wanted to give my children this advantage. When I met my wife, I was so swept off my feet that I forgot my long standing wish. I, however, got her to do a specialty in a field, radiology, which would not have to take both of us out on call duties at night.
They say doctors have weakness for women, is that true in your case?
I don’t even believe that doctors have weakness for women. However, because of our training, you may say we are gentle and polished with them.
Do you still practise medicine?
Because I love medicine, I don’t miss any opportunity to go into the theatre when I can. Even when I was governor, I did.
Is any of your children a doctor?
My second daughter, even though she has a Master’s degree, will enter medical school next fall.
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